Do you like to have a single giant monitor, a couple mid-sized monitors or some other configuration? Specifically, I’m interested in your home general purpose computer system. (No media centers or netbooks)

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Switched this topic to CW because it is inviting more open-ended discussion.
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TheTXIJul 15 '09 at 20:54

Thanks. I'll try to remember that for appropriate questions in the future.
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BenMaddoxJul 15 '09 at 20:56

I have one 22'' monitor with Full HD - 1920x1080. Most 22'' do not offer such resolution, but some manufactures create such. At work I have two 1280x1024 monitors, but I found one big monitor more useful.

I'd love to have three 1280x1024s, but for space and pocketbook reasons I have one 1280x1024 and one 1024 x 768 at home at the moment.

I'm probably in the minority in that I'm not a huge fan of going larger than 1280x1024. Any larger than that and I start having to do desktop window management instead of just maximizing everything. Kind of a pain.

This leaves quite a bit of possibilities out there. Widescreen is a plus, if you can get a desk to accommodate the additional space needed. It's also a setup that is within reasonable reach of mom-and-pop, i.e. it's a realistic goal that can be achieved by them if they want it. Spending thousands for ultra-high-end monitors is nice but frankly not everyone can plunk down that kind of money, especially if they have a house, kids, cars, cards, etc.

I've had that configuration for a few years now. Outside of gaming, it's great 99% of the time: the remainder I wish had had 2nd 30" to put 2 big windows side by side. Gaming is a minor disappointment since none of the multimonitor tools place nicely with a PLP layout. orthogonaltonormal.com/midden/NewYearsResolution_4960x1600.jpg
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Dan NeelyJun 27 '13 at 18:38

It's a matter of personal taste, however one thing I have found extremely useful over the years is to set aside a single monitor (preferably widescreen) rotated into portrait mode exclusively to read ebooks and pdf documents from.

It comes in especially handy if you are a developer and are reading a computer ebook on one monitor and trying out the examples in your IDE on the other.

It depends on what I am doing. At home for email and web surfing a MacBook Pro with a 15" screen is plenty. At work a 23" Cinema display (1650X1080) and a 24"(1900X1200) Dell are adequate for writing software all day. For work I don't think I could go back to a single monitor.